France and Germany hope to present a common position on the closer integration of the eurozone by the end of the year. But ahead of today’s (7 April) French-German Council, little progress has been made. EURACTIV France reports.

French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron has called for a new start for Europe, telling a German newspaper the eurozone status quo would lead to the currency union's self-destruction and that fiscal transfers between member states are necessary.

If the Juncker Commission is Europe’s last hope “then we are done for”, said ex-foreign minister Joschka Fischer, claiming Germans do not care about the new Commission president. EURACTIV Germany reports.

British Conservative MEPs have cried foul over a proposal to create a permanent European Parliament sub-committee to deal with the single currency, saying it would have “major implications for the UK to regulate its financial services sector” and represented an attempt to “curtail” the influence of British MEPs.

Paris and Berlin have delayed plans for deepening the economic and monetary union until after next year’s European elections, following talks in Paris between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande on the future of the eurozone.

Leaders of European business federations have called for today's EU summit to agree further political integration in the eurozone, with Laurance Parisot, head of France's MEDEF employers' group, saying that the idea of a "United States of Europe was no longer utopia".